After hitting a snag in a proposed trade that would reunite Gary Payton II with the Golden State Warriors, the deal will go through as planned, per The Athletic. The deal was in jeopardy Saturday night after it was reported that Payton’s physical post-trade revealed a core muscle injury that could keep him out for up to three months.
Because of that revelation, the Warriors filed a complaint against the Portland Trail Blazers, and the league launched an investigation into the matter. If the Trail Blazers are found to have misled Golden State regarding Payton’s health, they could be punished with a fine and or loss of draft picks, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The initial four-team trade, which was in place prior to the trade deadline on Feb. 9, also included sending James Wiseman to Detroit, Saddiq Bey going to Atlanta and Kevin Knox heading to the Trail Blazers along with five future second-round picks. Wojnarowski reports that while the deal is expected to go through on Sunday, the Warriors are working with the league to look at ways to “preserve their rights to pursue recourse on how Payton’s medical information was shared.”
Payton, who won a championship with the Warriors last season, did not make his season debut with Portland until Jan. 2 after undergoing abdominal surgery in the offseason. In December, Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said that Payton was also trying to overcome mental roadblocks to get on the court.
“Medically we’ve and he’s done everything that he can do,” Billups said at the time. “I always tell people a lot of times like nobody really understands like when you have an injury, you have surgery, there’s not just the physical component that you have to get over, there’s a mental component as well. You don’t want to get hurt again, you don’t want to re-injure yourself, and I think that that’s kind of where it is with G is like, he’s just trying to get over that.”
In 15 games since returning to the Blazers, the defensive specialist has averaged 4.1 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 17 minutes per…
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